Modi holds trilateral with Xi & Putin; discusses hot-spot issues like terrorism & climate change

Osaka, June 28: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a trilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin here on Friday and discussed global hot-spot issues, especially terrorism and climate change.

Modi, who is in Osaka, Japan for the G20 Summit, hosted Xi and Putin for an informal RIC (Russia-India-China) meeting here.

In his opening remarks, Prime Minister Modi said that the trilateral meeting in Osaka is a useful medium of discussion and coordination on major global issues.

After a long time, the three leaders met in Argentina at the summit level last year.

"As the world's leading economies, the exchange of views between us, on the economic, political and security situation of the world, is important. Our trilateral meeting today is a useful medium of discussion and coordination on major global issues.

"During the meeting of our foreign ministers in China in February, views were discussed on many issues. These include cooperation on issues of counter-terrorism, international hot-spot, reformed multilateralism, climate change under RIC," Modi said.

"The RIC meeting was an excellent forum to discuss ways to enhance multilateral cooperation between our nations and work to mitigate challenges being faced by our planet, most notably terrorism and climate change," the prime minister tweeted later.

"Together addressing global challenges. PM @narendramodi hosted Russian President Putin & Chinese President Xi for an informal 'RIC' meeting in Osaka. Discussed counter-terrorism, international hot-spot issues, reformed multilateralism & climate change," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted earlier.

The three countries, in a joint communique of the 16th Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, India and China, strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

In February, China and Russia agreed for a closer policy coordination to eradicate the "breeding grounds of terrorism", in a significant gain for India in its push to isolate Pakistan internationally on the issue of terrorism post-Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad.